In The Dutch Courtesan, Cocledemoy defends prostitution as the “most honorable” trade because it sells the “best commodities”, virtues such as virginity and modesty. He goes on to praise “the whore” for her ability to sell these commodities “not like a petty chapman, by retail, but like a great merchant, by wholesale.” While “retail” refers to (according to the OED) sales in petty, small quantities, “wholesale” is, by contrast, selling in large quantities with indiscriminate or unlimited disposal. Ironically then, Cocledemoy is elevating the whore’s status through the very quality of her trade that the rest of society disrespects her for: the sheer quantity or proliferation of her “customers”. When filtered through the language of commerce, her ‘unlimited disposal’ of such a high value commodity – her sexuality –is what distinguishes her as a more respectable merchant, despite the fact that it deems her a less respectable member of society.

Cocledemoy’s final argument attesting to the ‘honor of the whore’ lies in the fact that while other trades profit by their customers’ discontent, the whore “lives by others’ pleasure”. It appears that Cocledemoy is not only commenting on the whore herself, but on the very mechanism of capitalistic society -- that which relies on desire as its raw material. While, in relation to many trades, desire emerges as the need to relieve pain or fill some sort of void, desire functions in the whore’s trade without the necessity of loss. In other words, sexual desire has no natural limit; it is not a pain that goes away when given the proper medicine, nor is it a void that is permanently filled when the coveted material good is bought. This is critical to understanding sex as a most unique commodity; this is a “good” that never runs out and thus welcomes its indulgence, excess, and over-consumption. The “whore” as a vendor then also finds herself in a most unique position in the marketplace; with unlimited supply (sex) and unlimited demand (the insatiable desire of society), her business is bound to always flourish. (This sentiment is also articulated by Pompey in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.)

Thus we may begin to understand why Marston (through Cocledemoy) would choose to 'commodify' the behaviors of a whore in order to justify them to this particular audience. By establishing prostitution as a trade or profession requiring a certain set of skills, and by praising this profession for its ability to sell high value merchandise at an unlimited disposal, Cocledemoy’s logic caters perfectly to an audience/society that makes judgments based entirely on exchange value. Appropriately, he is deriving worth from the objectified “whore” not by her overall threat to society’s values (this would indeed reflect the old, “communal” interpretation of “commodity”), but rather by her commercial efficacy, or by the evolved, self-interested notion of her “commodity”. This tendency -- to commodify sexuality based on exchange value and private self-interest -- we will find, extends far beyond both the world of The Dutch Courtesan as well as the realm of prostitution.

The image to the left portrays life in a mid-seventeenth century brothel; here, men make the most of the ir purchased "commodities" to a point of excess and overindulgence. The scence is depicted by artist, Jan Steen (1626-79).

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